


don't dream forever (rise)

by kimaracretak



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person, death comma the moments of, some body horror maybe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 03:24:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10890687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: Death, and the moments of.Spoilers up to episode 97





	don't dream forever (rise)

**Author's Note:**

> the minor/background relationships, for those wondering: the raven queen/vex, vex/pike, vex/keyleth, vax/keyleth
> 
> title from epica, 'ascension: dream state armageddon'

The first one is not yours.

She's small, so small even in a world like yours, and she looks up at you shedding golden light like tears.

"I didn't expect this," she says, and her voice is steadier than that of most of your visitors. "Am I — am I to stay here?"

If you had a body you would kneel to her, but you tip down, down, down til you brush the top of her head.

"No, sweet one," you say to the mortal whose light has too many fates woven in, a godhood awaiting just like you. "Not yet."

 

* * *

 

The second one holds an axe to where he thinks your throat might be.

"I'll kill you," he says, and looks almost surprised to have spoken aloud. "We killed a beholder, I'll —"

And then he pauses, looks around as your shadows lift to trace exploratory lines down the fates trailing from his hands and you watch his eyes clear.

"Oh," he says. "Well. I wasn't afraid of this, you know, just, my buddy Pike —"

You don't deal in names, anymore, but as he speaks you meet a knot of light, and memory flares.

"I remember," you say. "Go tell her."

 

* * *

 

The third and fourth are together, as you know they always have been, wrapped so tightly around each other you would not be able to tell them apart except you hold only one of their threads.

"Take me instead," the other whispers, and you hear — you feel — you know your champion, here with everything you are.

"And me," the one you hold corrects. "Half of me is —"

"I know." For them you will move, slip from the shadows to take them both in one hand. Together, still. "My champions. My beautiful champions. There is so much work to be done."

 

* * *

 

He comes to you lost the second time, the man who has not seen your face but would not be scared to. You know the warp and weft better now, know that his life still lies with your champions, and yet —

— not all the shadows curling round his body are yours this time.

"Oh, this won't do at all." You settle next to him easily, though he doesn't respond — perhaps he cannot hear. Two threads lie in your hand now, awaiting Her success.

Your choice.

You spin a thread around your finger and _pull_.

He opens his eyes, and vanishes.

 

* * *

 

The fifth one is bound to your small warped group by memories alone by the time you meet him, and he is fading fast; so, so fast that his claws barely catch the weave.

"This is nonsense," he is saying as he strides forward. "Absolute poppycock to think that we would be caught like this — to think that they wouldn't come! It's a matter of protection by now, a matter of the fight, to bring him forward, and to circle him —"

You reach out, and your hand slips right through him. He is not for you, and will never be.

 

* * *

 

The sixth one stays with you the longest of them all, longer even than he stayed in your temple.

By rights he shouldn't, by rights you have only a moment with them. But there is so much death in this one, and you have ever wanted.

"You broke something, Percival," you say, when the wait is almost over. "Not yourself. Not quite the world."

"You said that already," he murmurs, head lolling against the wall. "You don't care enough to tell me what to do."

"Perhaps you should care enough to do more." Thread spools silently back into his chest.

 

* * *

 

Your champion comes back to you bleeding, cracked bones peeking through burnt skin and the stink of necromancy wafting through her hair.

"I'm sorry," she cries as you lift her on one soft wing. "Raishan — she'll fall, I promise my friends will —"

"Sweet Vex'ahlia." You silence her with a kiss. "You've done so much, so well, my brave girl, and I am proud. But listen."

Her eyes don't leave your own, but Pike's call is unmistakable.

"She calls you, too, Vex'ahlia. Will you return to her? Will you walk for me?"

"Yes," Vex breathes, and she smiles, and she smiles.

 

* * *

 

The seventh one comes to you angry, and the memory of your breath catches in the dark. This is the worst conversation, with the ones who must be sent back to their lives but rage against it all the while.

His words cannot touch you: he will return, as surely as the ice still dripping from his clothes covered his body on the mortal plane.

"I didn't want this," he says. "I don't want to go back, like this."

"It matters not." You turn, feeling the pull and weight of light. "Your life is not over. It was hardly interrupted."

 

* * *

 

Your champion comes to you with beads in his seawater-tangled hair and skin paler than your mask. Smaller, just like his sister was when she was alone.

"My champion," you murmur, running your fingers through his hair, feeling the decorations chime in an echo of his heart. "You follow your sister back to me so soon. Will you follow her back to the living again as well?"

The threads of his fates are warm where you press them into his hand.

"What —" His voice cracks with such impossible devotion. "What would you have me do, my lady?"

"Choose, my champion."

 

* * *

 

The last of them does not pass to your realm with the bloody heat of battle or the finality of age; she stumbles, with outstretched arms and a smile that fades too quickly.

"Oh. Oh no no no no I ... misjudged that. A lot. Hi. Sorry? Vex and Vax are gonna be so mad..."

Even in her death she does not belong in your realm, heavy with the weight of both your champions' love, with their fates wrapped so safely round her heart.

"Keyleth..."

"Hi," she squeaks, and does not look surprised Death knows her name.

"Go home, sweet girl."

**Author's Note:**

> yes technically percy and scanlan both had second deaths but ten is a nicer number of drabbles than twelve, so


End file.
